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About alponess

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no, that would have helped!
i always wonder why people don't use them all the time. i mean, it's not like they weigh that much or get in the way when you don't need them. is it just that people don't even buy them in the first place? i guess that's sort of a rhetorical line of questioning ...
I wonder why people don't just take the stinkin' things off when they don't need them! Whenever I've been on the Emmons, if the snow if balling up coming down, you won't need them anymore. Period.
Granted... if we're talking a short stretch of clingy snow, followed by something you'd want them for, then by all means just deal with it. But it seems like there's always groups that come staggering into Schurman, still with their crampons on, with 47 lbs of snow stuck to them. Why make it more dangerous for yourself? Just take them off.
-kurt
good point, we removed the crampons entirely around 12.5 and were much happier without at that point

Some years the route curves to the left and arrives at the summit crater on the east and you have to traverse it to the actual summit. We curved around to the right at 13.5 and arrived almost exactly at the summit once we got up to the crater.

The Inter glacier is kind of melting down in the center near the base, it almost looked like a big icy pool of water, go around it (we went to the west of the pool) and try to get up it earlier rather than later.
Summit day conditions July 5th were perfect on the ascent, the route was in great condition as was the snow in general. On the descent (we left the summit ~8:45am) the snow balled up in our crampons a LOT and we had to knock it out of our crampons on every/every other step, until about 12,700 when it wasn't balling up as badly for some reason. Get down as early as possible.

I climbed in Ecuador in the spring of 2003 with a VERY good local guide (who I can recommend if you are interested). I hoped to head for Chimbo but he highly recommended against it because of all of the melting that was occurring countrywide on the volcanoes in Ecuador. He said Chimbo in particular was quite dangerous and icy and that just hiking up it required a running belay. We went up Cotopaxi and Illiniza Sur instead and had a great time. Illiniza Sur was also melting like crazy, and the glacier that had been on Illiniza Norte 5 years earlier was completely gone. I can't imagine Chimbo is much better now than it was then but the international climbing companies are still guiding it so who knows. PM me if you want my guide's contact info, he was amazing and has been guiding peaks down there for 25+ years, if nothing else he'd be a great resource for current info on the area.

I'm planning a trip to climb in the Cordillera Blanca of Peru. As far as experience, I am a late beginner/early intermediate climber and I'd like to climb with someone with at least equivalent, hopefully more extensive experience than myself. Please send me a message if you are interested in climbing in Peru in August (between the 3rd and 23rd).